Dreams, drawings and psychoanalytic fun

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The Metro ran a story in which a fan claimed to have seen Michael Gambon at a small-town Odeon, taking in a Harry Potter showing on his own. “IT WAS REALLY HIM!” insisted the headline. The informant used an unusual kind of logic, describing the internal pillars and period decor (peach and beige stripes) of this particular post-war Odeon, as if by demonstrating that he had been to this cinema, he could prove that Michael Gambon was also there.

I’m disappointed to say that my dream-self was convinced for a little while, before discussing it (still in dream) with Sibling, whose scientific background was having none of it.

Kate Moss’s self-satisfied face on the cover of a magazine which broadcasted, in greedy yellow letters, that at her heaviest-ever eight stone, she’d finally found happiness with her shape.

The cover image didn’t actually feature her body, only a close up of her face with chin tilted up so you were looking almost into her nostrils and her half-closed eyes, her hands cupped loosely around her chin, with fingertips plunged into the ends of her hair which looked sallow and lank.

The moral of the story: it does’t matter what size you are, if photographers will take such unflattering photos of you, and celebrity magazines will nonetheless hail you as one of the greatest beauties available for others to aspire to.

The literal inspiration for the dream is that I’m struggling to accept that my weight has settled at about half a stone heavier than it was when I most enjoyed my appearance.

But I think it’s saying something else about the examples which I feel I am expected (by others / society / a dominant view of some kind) to admire. Evidentally, I feel highly scathing of something or someone I’m supposed to look up to. I believe that the system for assessing merit is skewed, so that although beauty exists, it isn’t where we’re encouraged to see it.

I’m not entirely sure where in my life this particularly applies right now… so how about you? Where in your life do you see praise heaped upon the distinctly mediocre? Or in what situations do you find yourself being unfavourably compared to others who you wouldn’t want to be like anyway?